“I never said any such thing, but only that—besides, he may change his mind, and go to the lake after all!”

“Make yourself easy: he won’t! Not while he knows I’m at home, at all events.”

She said fretfully: “I might have known how it would be! I would as lief not to go to the Grange at all now, and I wouldn’t, only that I have had the horses put to. But I shan’t know a moment’s peace of mind for wondering if my poor, orphaned child is safe, or at the bottom of the lake!”

“If he should fail to appear in time for his dinner, I will have the lake dragged,” promised Sylvester, walking to the door, and opening it. “Meanwhile, however careless I may be of my nephew I am not careless of my horses, and I do beg of you, if you have had a pair put to, not to keep them standing in this weather!”

This request incensed Ianthe so much that she flounced out of the room in high dudgeon.

“Edifying!” remarked Sylvester. “Believing her orphaned son to be at the bottom of the lake this devoted parent departs on an expedition of pleasure!”

“My dear, she knows very well he isn’t at the bottom of the lake! Can you never meet without rubbing against one another? You are quite as unjust to her as she is to you, I must tell you!”

He shrugged. “I daresay. If I had ever seen a trace of her vaunted devotion to Edmund I could bear with her patiently, but I never have! If he will be so obliging as to submit to her caresses she is pleased to think she dotes on him, but when he becomes noisy it is quite a comedy to see how quickly she can develop the headache, so that Button must be sent for to remove her darling! She never went near him when he had the measles, and when she made his toothache an excuse to carry him off to London, and then was ready to let the brat’s tooth rot in his head rather than put herself to the trouble of compelling him to submit to its extraction—”